Some Summer Sewing

Well, we may not be getting summer weather in the UK, but the wet weather has meant more time spent sewing, mainly little projects that I’d finished and move onto the next one before thinking about blogging about them. So here's a catch up of the last couple of months.

First up were a couple of useful items - a tiny biscornu pin cushion and case for my sewing glasses. The pin cushion was a quick handsewing project using 1" squares of Liberty tana lawn. As tana lawn is so fine, I reinforced it with some fusible fleece after piecing the four patch block and prior to sewing it together.


The glasses case used up the left over ½” hexies from my Union Jack quilt and was lined with some silk twill from my trip to the Adamley sale. At some point I’ll write a tutorial for this, but in the meantime the layout of the hexies is shown to get you started.
  

Next was an apron for Love Stitches’ apron festival which was raising money for a local hospice. This was in the patchwork sewing apron category and each apron needed a title and so this one was called “Measure Twice, Cut Once”. The patchwork elements were the block border at the top and foundation paper pieced scissors on the pocket (made using a pattern from Craftsy). In keeping with the title, the neck strap and waist ties were made from tape measure fabric.

Sunday was a washout weather-wise but productive for sewing. First was a very quick phone case made from leather for my husband's new phone. This was just a matter of cutting a piece of leather to size and stitching the sides together. I used Aurifil 28wt thread which was thick enough to give a little extra strength and not too thick to cause problems with the machine’s tension.
 

Sunday afternoon was spent making a batch of boob bags for knitted knockers! Knitted Knockers UK are a group of volunteers who provide free knitted protheses for women who have had a lumpectomy or mastectomy. One volunteer was having problems finding gift bags for the larger cup sizes and so I offered to make some. This cause has actually got me cutting into my Liberty stash as the fineness of the tana lawn means the drawnstring bags do not end up being too bulky.

Sewing plans for August include a trip to Festival of Quilts, finishing my husband's quilt (I've actually started it after several years of waiting!) and making a picnic blanket which is more in keeping with my new picnic basket that the existing £4.99 Lidl special.
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Building Blocks Quilt

The boats quilt was well received in Norway, so much so that a second one was needed for my great nephew’s step-brother. After some discussion about what is popular these days with eight-year old boys, I decided to go with a Lego theme. Using Moda’s Blockhead baby quilt as a starting point, I planned a pattern using Quilt Assistant for a bigger rectangular quilt with no borders.

Apart from the backing, this quilt was made entirely from stash. The Lego blocks were made from FQs (including some left over from the boats quilt) and the background is some Timeless Treasure black/rainbow rain fabric found in the bargain baskets at Abakhans a few months ago. I backed the quilt with fleece and added a narrow binding in bright red.

An advantage of making a two-layer quilt with fleece is not having to worry about the distance between lines of quilting. I simply stitched-in-the-ditch around the Lego blocks using Aurifil 40wt in black, adding in a few “ghost” blocks where there was a large area of background. For these ghost blocks, I drew a template on freezer paper, ironed it on, stitched around it and then it was just a matter of peeling it off and ironing on in the next spot.

I’m pleased with how this Lego quilt turned out and I really enjoyed the design part of it, especially working out how to piece the blocks together with the minimum of seams. The Timeless Treasures fabric was a generous 44” for WOF so I just need to work out cutting instructions for slightly narrower fabrics before putting this pattern in my tutorials/project section.

Found - a new, local(ish) sewing shop

This weekend started early for me as I was off work on Friday afternoon for a little trip over to Heswall for afternoon tea in a sewing shop.

Love Stitch are based in the centre of Heswall and although the shop and cafe have been open since January, this Friday saw the launch of afternoon teas in the cafe. Through a Twitter giveaway, I had won afternoon tea at their launch event. Unfortunately I was so busy chatting and enjoying tea that I forgot to take any photos, but the lovely ladies at Love Stitch have kindly allowed me to use some from their Instagram and Facebook pages.

The official ribbon cutting was done by Paul Clarke (whom many of you will recognise from series three of the Great British Sewing Bee) and Betty Pamper, a local blogger and crafter.

(Photo credit: Love Stitch)

After we had enjoyed a glass (or two) of fizz, it was time to sit down for afternoon tea. Much to my delight I was seated at the same table as Paul (hark at me on first name terms!) who was more than happy to answer our many questions about GBSB, but conversation soon turned to fabric and yarns. An hour quickly passed filled with chatter, cups of tea, dainty sandwiches, delicious cakes and fresh-from-the-oven scones with cream, jam and strawberries. Too soon it was time for me to head home, but not before I had made a quick purchase of a couple of fat quarters of Liberty fabric to add to my Liberty stash.

(Photo credit: Love Stitch)

As well as a carefully curated selection of Liberty lawns and silks, Love Stitch have a range of dressmaking and patchwork fabrics, haberdashery and yarn. They also run various sewing, knitting and crocheting classes in the upstairs studio. More details can be found on their website, Facebook page and blog, or on Twitter and Instagram.

(Photo credit: Love Stitch)

It is always nice to find a new fabric shop and it is even better when that fabric shop sells Liberty and is short trip from home. I expect this first visit will not be my last, especially I am tempted to make an apron for their Apron Festival and am trying to resist signing up for their amigurumi workshop.

Sail Away

After starting this quilt at the beginning of the year, it is now on its way to Norway to my relatively recently arrived great nephew. 

I initially planned this to be a square quilt and found an ideal sea-like background fabric in the bargain baskets at Abakhan. Somewhere along the planning the process I added in an extra row which meant that when it came to cutting the background fabric, there was only just enough.

The quilt is backed with fleece and the binding is a rainbow dotty print (both from the bargain baskets at Abakhan). It is quilted with Aurifil 40wt - the boats are outlined with stitching in the ditch and I used preset wavy line stitches for the waves. 

 

The pattern is available for free from Quilt Mag, should you wish to make one.

Flying the Flag (a Pattern for an EPP Union Jack)

A few posts ago I blogged about my competition entries for the Uttoxeter Quilt and Stitch Village. The Union Jack made of EPP hexagons was for the special category of British Royalty celebrating the longest serving monarchs, hence the inclusion of the royal cyphers for Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II.

By the magic of Photoshop, I can show you how the flag would look without these cyphers (much easier than making another!). 

 

If you would like to make one yourself, details of the number of hexagons, finished sizes, and the pattern for this English paper pieced Union Jack can now be found in the projects/tutorials section of this blog. The pattern was designed so that it remained as true as possible, when using hexagons, to the correct aspect ratio of the flag and also to the relative widths of the various sections (if you want to know more about this, click here). You may wish to modify the pattern so that is is more suited for snuggling under than flying from a flag pole.

Fast Fabric

This is just a quick post to share with you the excellent service shown by Oakshott Fabrics (and the Royal Mail). After seeing some Oakshott fabrics at the quilt show in Uttoxeter, I decided it was better to bite the bullet and order some sample swatches rather than try to guess colour matching from online images. I placed my order yesterday and the swatches arrived this morning!

As Oakshott have shimmery effect which is difficult to photograph, the swatch packs will be very useful and are really rather good value. Most, I think, come with a money off voucher for future purchases and some include a mini charm pack. To find the swatch packs on the Oakshott website, just enter "sample" in the search box.

(Please note, this post is written purely because I am so pleased with the service from Oakshott and not because I have received anything other than my order from them.)